Antioxidants are the compounds which when added to food products, specially to lipids and lipid containing foods, can increase the shelf life by retarding the process of lipid peroxidation, which is one of the major reasons for deterioration of food products during the processing and storage. Synthetic antioxidants, such as butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytolune (BHT), have restricted use in foods as these synthetic antioxidants are suspected to be carcinogenic (Madhavi, D. L.; Salunkhe, D. K. Toxicological Aspects of Food Antioxidants, In-Food Antioxidants, Eds.; Madhavi, D. L., Deshpande, S. S. Salunkhe, D. K., Marcel Dekker Inc. New York, 1995, p.267). Therefore, the importance of search and exploitation of natural antioxidants, especially of plant origin has greatly increased in recent years (Jayaprakasha, G. K. and Jaganmohan Rao, L. Zeitschrift für Naturforschung 2000, 55c, 1018-1022).
Lauraceae is an economically important family consisting mostly of trees or tree-like shrubs. The genus Cinnamomum comprises about 250 species which are distributed in Asia and Australia. The trees occur in South India up to altitudes of 500 meters, but mostly below 200 meters. The trees flower in January and fruits ripen during May-August (The Wealth of India, 1992. A Dictionary of Indian Raw materials and Industrial products, III Publications and Information Directorate, New Delhi, pp. 582). Cinnamomum zeylanicum (C. zeylanicum), the source of cinnamon bark, leaf and their essential oils, is an indigenous tree of Sri Lanka. Many species of cinnamon yield a volatile oil on distillation.
The most important cinnamon oils in world trade are those from C. zeylanicum, C. cassia and C. camphora. The other species provide oils, which are utilized as sources for chemical isolates. However, a number of other cinnamon species are distilled on a much smaller scale and the oils used either locally or exported. Cinnamon leaf and bark are used as spices and in the production of essential oils. Leaves have a hot taste and emit a spicy odor when crushed. Cinnamon offers a variety of oils with different aroma characteristics and composition to the flavor industry. The root bark was reported to have camphor as the main constituents, but does not seem to have commercial value, unlike leaf and stem bark oils [Senanayake, U. M.; Lee, T. H.; Wills, R. B. H. Volatile constituents of cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) oils. J. Agric. Food. Chem. 1978, 26, 822-824]. Cinnamon leaf oil has a warm, spicy, but rather harsh odor, lacking the rich body of the bark oil. Leaf oil has fragrant odor and very pungent taste.
Literature survey revealed that, there is no report on the isolation of antioxidant fraction from C. zeylanicum unconventional parts viz., fruits.